A Discussion regarding AI backing tracks

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Question. I genuinely would like a discussion. I'm not here to bash (or promote) generative AI.

This week at song circle (in person, local) one of the lyricists that used to attend quite a bit came in with a Suno.ai generated track and it was received pretty darn warmly by the group. The hitch, though. She was able to sing an original lyric with an original melody, upload that recording and get a fully produced track from it. She showed us the memo recording and, obviously, the finished track (which sounded great, btw.) It was amazing (in a weirdly mix of good and off putting ways.) It was an AI voice singing the track, a full band playing a southern gospel song with the result that, over a bluetooth speaker, sounded very impressive.

Additionally, this woman usually spends about $250 per song for someone to do a demo of her music. A couple of our local songwriters use outfits in Nashville to produce pretty good sounding demos (and sometimes spend more to pitch them to artists.) She subscribed to Suno.ai for around $200 for the year (and nearly unlimited song renderings.) So economically, for her, it was a no brainer. (I'm guessing the upload demo option is a premium feature.)

So the question is: How do you feel about an original melody and lyric being put into a generative AI tool in order to create the backing track and final mix? Is it much different than the generative drums/bass/backing in some DAWs? How do you feel about replacing a vocal with an AI generated voice. Is there a difference between using these tools separately and putting them together and just uploading a demo and pushing a button?

[ujnhunter]

If you want to write music (or I guess... melody/lyrics in this case) for yourself? Go for it. I don't personally want to be subjected to listening to it though. The whole "press a button" get result that all the people that used to bash me for recording music using a computer (instead of a tape deck, yes, they had no concept of DAW = Tape Deck) is coming true.

[jb]

Sounds like she had a whole song— not just lyrics. Or at least part of one. As a songwriter making a demo it sounds reasonable for her to use Suno instead of a demo factory.

The difficulty would be in adjusting it according to any kind of critique— chord suggestions or arrangement discussion is kind of off the table for a Suno generation, for the most part.

[Pigfarmer Jr]

Yeah, words and melody is a song to some of us. To some others, though, EDM etc., the production is as much of the writing process as the melody and lyric.

At one of the local studios, Centro Cellar Music here in Columbia, MO, Will Reeves will either perform or get musicians for folks to fill out recordings. Paid by the hour on a scalable rate. Several of the local songwriters take their songs to him to have the arrangement and recording made. If Suno or some other AI site had the ability to give me a steel guitar track or a fiddle track to an existing demo then I would be using those features at least a little bit.

[Aciniform Artifice]

Yeah, words and melody is a song to some of us. To some others, though, EDM etc., the production is as much of the writing process as the melody and lyric.

This is all part of a much broader discussion that has been going on (at least) as long as there has been recorded music.

If you come into a recording session with some lyrics and a basic song structure, and you have the bassist and drummer make up their own parts to the song, should they get songwriting credit for that? What about if the guitarist improvises a solo? Does it make a difference if these are hired studio musicians or if they are members of your band? Different people have always had different answers to this, whether it means crediting the whole band as "music by" or whether there are specific songwriters (e.g. Lennon/McCartney) that get credited by default.

This is all stuff that matters for songwriting royalties, and also for copyright protections (through various lawsuits it's been demonstrated that borrowing a chord progression or a bassline doesn't necessarily determine copyrighted infringement). The more tools get added in, and technology is able to help facilitate more parts of the creative process, that line of what YOU YOURSELF wrote gets more and more blurry...

[Pigfarmer Jr]

To add a level of wonderment (on my part) I've been seeing ads on social media for Suno (which I guess means I need to stop asking questions about it.) They have the stem separation tool built into the pro level. In essence, it becomes a loop making machine that you can then manipulate into whatever you want it to be. (Although, describing an entire piano track a loop is a bit misleading.)

I'm beginning to wonder if using stems and remixing/producing them into something different would be similar to using loops to help create a track. I'll be honest, I'm tempted to try it out and see what can be done. But I have enough of my own stuff going on to consider it too seriously at the moment.